


Seleché

by Carcharias



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Genderbending, girl names, girl!Chanyeol, some very light descriptions of wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7578676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carcharias/pseuds/Carcharias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chanyeon finds a seal washed up ashore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seleché

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2016 round of NabiSonyeo (girlexochange) on LJ.

_[Stupid, bad idea, bad, so stupid]_

A storm had swept to the coast down the river last night, stirring up the sandy bottom and dumping sediment into the estuary. The water is murky, tastes like mud in his mouth. Kyungsoo bites a little in distress and feels the scrape of sand grains between his canines, the slight tang of plastic always stronger after an upriver storm. It’s late, edging towards night.

This is _such_ a stupid idea. _[Bad, bad bad]_

But he’d spent the past eight days searching for food, in vain. _[Eight days. No food, hungry.]_ On the sixth day, when he’d started to become desperate, he’d stumbled upon a massive school of fish, but they’d been claimed by a pod of dolphins. _[Shrill clicks and chirps make ears hurt, too smart, dangerous, long grinning mouths of teeth. Unfriendly smiles, unfriendly gossip.]_

Kyungsoo had stayed away, watched carefully from a safe distance _[Wait]_ until they’d had their fill, and he could follow the school down the coast. Then the storm had hit, and he’d almost lost the fish. _[Storm. Wind, rain, waves, currents dragging, sweeping. Sweep fish away, push into dead reef, wait. Wait some more. Fish smell fading.]_

But even still, he’d managed to track them here, presumably feeding in the newly rich waters of the estuary. 

He knows they can’t be alone. _[Never alone, always alone.]_ It would be so ridiculously, completely stupid to venture into a murky estuary filled with fish. But the fish are _right there_ , and he’s so hungry. _[Eight days, so hungry.]_

Scales briefly flash silver in the murky water, and Kyungsoo bolts forward. 

_[Pulse]_

Kyungsoo feels it coming milliseconds before, a dark pressure wave through the water and he desperately flings himself to the side before it hits, slams into his lower half like a truck. 

Everything focuses, goes sharp and bright even in the murky water. _[Dragging, across, down?]_ For a moment he almost panics, when he tries to kick his flippers and doesn’t feel them move, thinks he’s stuck. But just as quickly they break free, and he ignores the pull of something scraping along the flesh of his flippers.

_[Get away, swim, leave, get out, get out, gET OUT GET OUT]_

He kicks frantically, zipping through the water for the shore, not looking back, _[gogogo]_ zigzagging when he can. The water starts to clear, and the seafloor suddenly rises up, sandy bottom rushing upward to meet him. His flippers are beginning to throb but he kicks harder, desperate to reach the beach. 

Finally, he surges out of the water into the cold air, shuffling out of the surf the awkward way of pinnipeds. But the minute he hits the beach he crumples, back flippers giving out.

He’s struggling in four inches of water and he looks down, curls as much as he can to see his back flippers in near-tatters. If he’d had any food in his stomach, he’d have thrown it up at the sight. Blood is flooding the tide as it swirls around him, seeping out red at a rate that causes the adrenaline to flood his heart even harder in panic. 

_[red, blood, red red too red, red water make it stop]_

He needs thumbs and a voice. He shudders and tries to shed his skin but immediately wails, long and inhuman as blinding, splitting, burning pain lances up from his lower half. Panic flares— _he has to change he can’t be stuck, he can’t—_ and he tries again, only to cry out even louder.

_[Stuck. Stuck in red water.]_

Kyungsoo feels his head flop into the surf, whining high as pain continues to throb through his body. He tastes blood and salt, and feels things in his head go fuzzy, feels the pain start to fade even as the taste of blood gets stronger. _[Red, pain, red on tongue]_ Some part of him, the less than seal part knows he’s going into shock but he can’t stop it. 

_[I am going to die here.]_

Night falls, but things go black before Kyungsoo can see the stars wink into brightness overhead.

☘ ☘ ☘

_I hate dogs,_ Chanyeon thinks as she groggily wraps her head in a scarf and zips up her wool coat. That’s a lie, Chanyeon adores dogs, but everything is despicable at 5:30am.

 _Alright, I don’t hate_ all _dogs, I just hate_ this _dog,_ Chanyeon rationalizes, opening the door and watching a brownish blur speed away down the boardwalk. But that is also a lie, Chanyeon would give Twinkie the world if the damn dog cared about anything besides chasing gulls.

Thus, Chanyeon is out on the beach just before dawn on a weekend, mid-November, trying to wrap the scarf tighter around her head and keep her red bedhead from becoming windblown and completely unsalvageable.

She makes it to the end of the boardwalk, nose already going numb, expecting to see Twinkie doing her business or chasing the tide near the dunes. Instead, she sees nothing.

“Twinkie?” She calls, and curses when she hears faint barking coming down the beach. She squints, and sees a smallish blot that looks like her dog near a larger, dark blob. Probably a piece of trash or driftwood.

“Twinkie, come here!” But Twinkie doesn’t run closer, merely barks again, and Chanyeon sighs. 

As she nears and a familiar low tide smell assaults her, she realizes that the blob Twinkie refuses to leave isn’t trash or wood, but a seal. A rather large seal, lying on the sand, motionless.

“Oh, shit.” Chanyeon rushes forward, shooing Twinkie away so she can check the seal over. It’s a bull—she takes a cautious step back. But it’s not moving, and as she rounds the seal she can see the bright red of too much exposed flesh on its back end and flippers. That kind of damage is either shark or boat, and being where it is on the seal’s body, Chanyeon guesses the more natural cause.

What isn’t natural, however, are the strange patterns on the seal. The size, coloring and location suggest grey seal but...those kinds of spots are oddly regular and frame the seal’s snout in a way Chanyeon has never seen before. 

She sighs. Shame, such a beautiful creature. Chanyeon reaches out to pat its snout sadly.

The seal shudders slightly, and she yelps.

“It’s not dead! Fuck, it’s not dead,” she swears, and scrambles for her phone in her coat pocket. She dials frantically.

After several rings, Sehun’s voice crackles sleepily over the line. “What the hell are you doing, calling me at— _shit,_ 5:45am?” 

“I need you on the beach right now. Bring the ATV, the blue tarp, all the towels, and rope.”

☘ ☘ ☘

Sehun is down on the beach in less than ten minutes, ATV growling down the sand from behind the dunes. Between the two of them, they manage to roll the seal onto wet towels and the tarp, strap it down, and lash it to the back of the vehicle. Chanyeon’s strong but Sehun is broader and stronger and she’s glad he thought to bring several pieces of wood for leverage. They carefully but swiftly drag the seal back to the unused pool in the back.

Sehun is already jumping off the ATV and shooing Twinkie into the house before Chanyeon can even tell him to grab his medical supplies. She leaves the seal lashed to the tarp while Sehun gets to work knitting tattered flesh back together, but except for a few strange shuddering movements and weird whines that give both of them pause, it remarkably doesn’t move through the whole stitching process.

Chanyeon watches quietly from the side, ready to assist if need be, but there’s no need. Sehun may be an overgrown brat for a roommate but he’s good at his job. The whole process takes a remarkably short time despite the cold; it’s barely midmorning by the time he’s finished.

Chanyeon prods gently at the soft, fatty flesh around the seal’s neck. It doesn’t react, and Chanyeon hopes that’s not a bad sign. “I’m gonna call him Squish.” Sehun looks up from where he’s cleaning the wound, eyebrow raised.

“Don’t give me that look!” Chanyeon frowns. “I’ll name him if I want to I don’t care--”

“I was just gonna say that’s a terrible name,” Sehun interrupts, smirking.

“It’s a good name!” Sehun just snorts and finishes cleanup. 

“It’s a good name,” she insists, patting Squish’s flank. It’s hard to tell but Chanyeon thinks he blinks once before his breathing evens out into something like sleep.

☘ ☘ ☘

Chanyeon steps away into the house once she feels Squish is settled in, cleans up and pulls out her phone. It rings twice before a young female voice answers, slightly muffled.

“Belleview Pinniped Rescue and Rehabilitation Center! How may I help you?”

“Hey, Baekhee, it’s Chanyeon. Is Xing around?”

“Oh!” The girl’s voice gets more excited, suddenly clearer and Chanyeon grins to herself imagining the call interrupting Baekhee’s morning blueberry muffin. “Chanyeon! Hi, yeah, uh, he’s around...somewhere. One sec.” There’s the sound of shuffling before a distant, brusque _“YIXING! PHONE!”_ that makes Chanyeon laugh out loud. 

More shuffling, a few lines of muted conversation, and the line clicks.

“Hey Chanyeon.”

Chanyeon can feel herself swoon at Yixing’s voice over the line, smooth and light and sweet like honey. She allows herself a second to bask in it before she responds.

“Hey yourself. Been a while.”

“Sure has,” Yixing replies, “we still miss your face around the Center.”

“My face or my voice?” Yixing laughs, a wonderful, bright thing, and Chanyeon can feel herself grinning too wide.

“Both, though Krystal and Jongin will definitely disagree with me on that.” Chanyeon laughs, this time. “So as delightful as this is, is this just a social call, or did you need something?”

Chanyeon sighs and settles onto the arm of her sofa. “I actually have a rescue. Grey seal, uh I think, bad shark bite. Found him on the beach this morning while walking Twinkie. I was hoping you guys could take him?”

“What do you mean ‘you think’ he’s a grey seal? Is he that badly mangled?”

Chanyeon worries at her thumbnail with her teeth. “No, no I mean. Well yeah, he’s pretty banged up but--well I’m pretty sure he’s a grey seal he’s just...a weird morph or something.” _Oh my god, Chanyeon, shut up._ “Anyway, can you take him?” Yixing sighs heavily, and Chanyeon frowns.

“We can’t, actually. Seohyun just went on maternity leave the other day, and so we’re down one staff member. We’re at the end of pup season and so we’re still at full capacity; we can’t physically or legally take in any more. Definitely not for a couple weeks at least, if we can get a new intern trained after the holidays.”

“Dammit.” Chanyeon pauses. “I think I can properly rig up my pool for him in the meantime? Would that work?”

“Can you? I’d have to come over and check it out.”

Chanyeon grins again at that. “That would be great. And if you could bring along some frozen bags of fish and like, dietary supplements that would be super helpful.”

“I can do that. I’ll come by tomorrow before lunch.”

“Thanks, Yixing.”

“Don’t mention it. Besides, I want to see the ‘weird morph.’ And the seal, too.” Chanyeon yells indignantly and Yixing laughs, before they hang up. Chanyeon tosses her phone onto her sofa and sighs. Out the window she can see Squish resting on the wet blankets by the pool, breathing slowly. He appears to still be asleep.

She sighs again as she stands up. Better get to work.

☘ ☘ ☘

A few hours later, she and Sehun have cleaned and filled the pool and rigged up a wooden platform on the stairs out of an old deck table they found in storage. They carefully drag Squish onto the dry portion, and Chanyeon whoops when it doesn’t collapse.

“I’m gonna go take the hottest shower and order like, five pizzas,” Sehun whines, dragging himself to the house. 

“Get bell peppers!” Chanyeon shouts from where she’s sprawled on the patio, too tired to care about the cold for now. 

“No, fuck you!” Sehun yells, and Chanyeon blindly shoots him the finger. She rolls over and pulls herself close to the pool to watch Squish, who is still lying calmly on the platform. 

“I hope you make it,” she whispers, reaching out tentatively to pat at the soft fuzz near Squish’s front flippers. He opens his eyes and Chanyeon tries not to read human sadness into them.

Yixing arrives the next day while Chanyeon is squatting by the side of the pool, tossing frozen shrimp at Squish. He’s still sluggish so half the time he doesn’t quite catch the shrimp and Chanyeon has to reach forward and fish them out of the pool. She’s doing just that when Yixing, followed by Sehun, comes around back.

“Hey!” he says brightly, beaming like the heavens shine from his face and dimples out in full force. Chanyeon, to her horror, yelps, loses her balance, and goes right in the pool.

They fish her out quickly--well, Yixing gives her a hand while Sehun convulses uselessly in honking laughter. Even Squish makes a whuffly noise that Chanyeon would interpret as laughter if she didn’t know better. She contemplates letting hypothermia take her, but is thwarted by Yixing ushering her to the house to change. _What a gentleman, she thinks,_ admiring the warmth of his hands on her soaking shoulders, _even if he’s also laughing._

She returns outside to Yixing looking at Squish curiously. “You guys did a good job,” he says, smiling up at her. “Filtration’s solid, platform is stable...I’m really impressed with the setup.” Chanyeon preens, and feels her heart flutter a little at the praise. 

“Haha, thanks, that means a lot coming from you.” Sehun makes a noise that sounds like a gag, and Chanyeon shoots him a glare. Yixing doesn’t seem to notice.

“This guy, though…” He turns back to Squish, gently tracing over the oddly regular spots along his body. Squish suddenly jolts back, snapping his jaws warningly at Yixing’s hands. Yixing jolts back but remains calm, watching as Squish weakly shuffles away from the pool edge.

“That’s weird,” Chanyeon frowns. “Squish has been totally calm--”

Yixing gives her a look. “Squish?” She blushes, and Yixing sighs. “You’re just gonna be sad when he’s gone.” He doesn’t say _if he dies_ but Chanyeon hears it anyway.

“Yeah, well,” Chanyeon huffs, still flaming. “You know I’m bad at that.”

He shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “Just try not to get too attached. Let me know if he makes it, and I’ll try to come get him in a few weeks if he does.” He ruffles her hair, stretching to reach and Chanyeon feels herself get even redder. “Sehun, help me with the bags of fish.” They both walk off, and Chanyeon sighs when they round the corner.

“He’s real dreamy, isn’t he?” Squish huffs and rocks the platform, making a wave of freezing water flood over her shoes.

☘ ☘ ☘

Despite Yixing’s warning, Chanyeon quickly becomes almost inseparable from Squish. While Sehun’s at the vet clinic, she spends the vast majority of the day lounging next to a space heater she dragged outside, tossing fish in increasingly difficult trajectories and splashing back and forth with Squish. She talks to him about everything, murmuring quietly about how her coastal seabird research is going, how she’s worried about funding, how she’s worried about rent on this place when Sehun moves out next year to live with his boyfriend, how her social life is fine but she can’t seem to get up the guts to ask Yixing or anyone on just _one_ date.

Squish listens patiently, huffing and barking at eerily appropriate times, and overall being a remarkably good conversationalist for a seal. He even manages to get along with Twinkie, though the dog had been uncharacteristically shy at first. 

It’s been almost a week and both she and Sehun are pleased at his rate of improvement. The stitches have held, and while he still spends most of his time on the platform, he’s started doing rounds in the pool, playfully splashing Chanyeol as he goes past. This afternoon, though, he’s spent laying out while Chanyeol chatters at him mindlessly. Occasionally he will do the same strange rippling, shuddery motion and whimper in pain.

“Hey, ssh, stop that,” Chanyeol admonishes, flicking water at his snout, then laying a hand soothingly on his neck. Normally she never would, but she’s found that Squish responds to touch quickly and positively, not like a hurt animal at all. It’s one of the many vaguely eerie things she’s quietly shoved to the back of her mind. “You’ll hurt yourself again and we want you to get better.” Squish calms, and Chanyeon gets up to go make herself lunch.

She’s in the kitchen waiting on the electric kettle when she hears a loud _bang_ and a terrible noise from out back, an inhuman scream like nothing she’s heard before. She races outside, only to stop short.

Where Squish was moments before sits a man on what looks like a pile of greyish fur, extremely naked and bleeding into the water. Chanyeon screams.

“What, what’s wrong?” Sehun appears from behind her, brandishing a frying pan. “Hello,” the man says, and they both immediately start yelling, swearing and demanding answers--who is he, where’d he come from, where’s Squish.

“I’m calling the police!” Chanyeon finally shrieks, yanking out her phone.

That gets the man’s attention, and he throws his hands up. “No! No, do not do that, please,” he says, dark eyes wide and pleading. Chanyeon finds herself pausing, fingers hovering over her lockscreen. Then the man continues, “I _am_ the seal.”

“Nah fuck this, we are definitely calling the police.” Sehun snatches Chanyeon’s phone and unlocks it.

“Wait! Wait, I will prove it.” Quickly, the man grabs the pile of fur and shrugs it on like a coat, graceful and smooth. Pale skin disappears quickly and the man’s figure shudders violently, edges appearing to shimmer as fur and flesh shift and stretch to fit the new skin. Within several seconds, there lies Squish again, gasping, flippers bleeding fresh and large eyes staring at them balefully. 

Sehun drops her phone. Chanyeon barely notices.

“Squish?” she says, and gasps as the seal begins to shudder, much like it had been all week. Only this time she realizes it’s trying to shrug off its skin, as flesh shrinks and fur parts to re-reveal swaths of pale human skin and muscle. 

“My name is Kyungsoo,” he says when his face is revealed, letting the fur slide off his shoulders and back easily. But when it reaches his legs there is a loud, wet, horrible tearing sound and he screams in pain. He collapses to the platform, gasping and clutching shakily at his leg, and Chanyeon sees an ugly red gash along his calf, half stitched up but partly torn open. 

Kyungsoo looks up, grimacing. “I will not be doing that again,” he says, before passing out.

☘ ☘ ☘

Squish-- _Kyungsoo_ \--wakes up again about an hour later, after Sehun and Chanyeon had carried him carefully inside and laid him on the kitchen table, covering him with heavy blankets. He wakes up in the middle of Sehun carefully stitching his calf closed, and moans in pain.

“Ssh, don’t move,” Chanyeon says from where she’s hovering by his head. She instinctively lays a hand on his shoulder and he immediately stills. 

“Sorry we don’t have any numbing agent,” she says. “But Sehun is good at this, it’ll be over quick.” She looks down and finds Kyungsoo staring at her, intense features amplified by an unreadable, serious expression. It feels like he’s staring into her, and she nervously looks away, removing her hand. When she looks back, his eyes are closed, breathing deep and thick eyebrows knit in concentration.

They both carry Kyungsoo to the couch when Sehun is done. He sags into the cushions but refuses to sleep before someone brings him his skin. Chanyeon carefully fetches it, noticing the large, bloodied tattered edge. She brings it in and he falls asleep quickly, exhausted and clutching his sealskin. Later, when he wakes up they’ll get him some crutches and find actual clothes for him to wear; Sehun’s tighter clothes should fit, though he’ll probably have to cuff the pants. 

Until then, though, they both decide to break open the whiskey.

☘ ☘ ☘

They decide to keep it secret, tell Yixing the seal died. “No one would believe it’s actually a magical seal-person anyway,” Sehun says. “Selkie,” Kyungsoo corrects from the couch, lounging in one of Sehun’s sweatshirts and a pair of trackpants that fit a bit too snugly across the thighs. “The correct name is selkie. We have been around for centuries. And it is not _really_ magic, it is more of a--”

“I do not care,” Sehun deadpans, lightly mocking, and Chanyeon smacks him. “Don’t be rude,” she hisses. “How long are you going to be here?”

Kyungsoo considers. “Well at least until my leg closes up. I cannot risk tearing it open again. I heal faster as a seal, but I need to repair my sealskin, the damage is too great.” He gestures at the tattered gash splitting the back end of it. “It stitches up too, but also needs time to heal, like human skin.” 

“So roughly three weeks or so,” Chanyeon says and Kyungsoo nods. Sehun snorts. “Well, now you’ve got company while I’m at work, Chanyeon.” Kyungsoo beams at her, lips gone heart shaped and stunning. Chanyeon blushes, suddenly nervous.

☘ ☘ ☘

It’s been a few days and Chanyeon still doesn’t know quite how to act around Kyungsoo. The only thing that appears to hold his attention more than Chanyeon herself is repairing his sealskin. This kind of undivided attention was fine when he was a seal but now he can talk back, and Chanyeon is trying to recalibrate her brain from “cute seal” to “really, really hot (if kinda weird) guy.” So when he suddenly appears at the end of the couch while she’s compiling research, asking what she’s doing, she flails a little and nearly knocks her laptop off the coffee table.

“Oh, is this your seabird research?” Kyungsoo scoots closer to her on the couch and despite a minor internal freakout, she lets him, trying not to ogle the way the dark long sleeved tshirt looks rolled up over his forearms.

“Uh, yeah, the seabird rookery microsatellite mapping--” she pauses. “Wait, do--do you remember what you hear while a seal?” Kyungsoo gives her an unimpressed look and she blushes. “Yeah okay, dumb question. You probably don’t want to hear about this anyway.” She makes to close the laptop, but Kyungsoo’s hand on hers stops her.

“No, I want to hear about it. It sounds interesting.” He smiles earnestly, and Chanyeon feels an answering smile slowly spread over her own face. 

“Yeah? Well I mean, I guess it’s not all boring...like, I’m trying to use microsatellites to map out the genetic connections along the coast and between islands…”

“What are microsatellites?” She grins wider.

That’s how Sehun finds them a couple hours later, sitting close on the couch, Kyungsoo laughing while Chanyeon animatedly tells ridiculous stories about catching seabirds and getting shat on. She freezes in the middle of imitating an angered father booby trying to chase her from the nest, lowering her arms even as Sehun’s eyebrow arches upward.

“So…” he says, over Kyungsoo’s gradually fading laughter. “Dinner? I got a movie date with the boy after he gets off work.” Chanyeon rolls her eyes but dutifully gets her phone out to order takeout. She avoids looking at them both.

Just as Chanyeon had feared, on his way out the door Sehun corners her in the kitchen where she’s washing dishes. 

“So. Kyungsoo.” Sehun leans casually against the kitchen counter, fingering his fancy couple bracelet.

Chanyeon looks around nervously, but Kyungsoo is in the living room, working on his skin. “What about him?”

“He’s hot,” he says, pointedly. “Not really my type, but…”

Chanyeon snorts. “What do you mean ‘not your type’, short and muscled is _exactly_ your type.” Sehun waves her off.

“Yes but _really into my best friend_ is not.” Chanyeon gulps. “He really likes you.” 

Chanyeon scoffs but Sehun continues. “Yes really, he does. You’ve never, like, balked at romance before.” Chanyeon mutters “Yixing” under her breath and Sehun rolls his eyes. “I mean people with actual mutual interest. _You_ don’t even like him more than eye candy. Kyungsoo, though, is hot, mysterious, and very interested. What gives?” 

Chanyeon braces herself against the counter, feeling suddenly exhausted and irritated. “I don’t know, Sehun, I just always get so invested so quick and then it ends and--you know, I’m kind of tired being the one stuck with the bill at the end, yeah?”

Sehun backs off, hands up. “Alright, just, maybe give it a try? At least get some, your sex life depresses me.” He artfully dodges the damp dishrag Chanyeon pitches at his head (“Get laid, fix that attitude!”) and struts out of the front door.

Chanyeon sighs and picks up the rag, glancing thoughtfully out at the living room. Kyungsoo’s carefully stitching up his sealskin, brow furrowed and biting at his full lips in concentration. His shiny dark hair is flopping into his eyes a little and it’s both cute and kinda sexy. He glances up and gives her a tiny smile. Something skips in her chest.

Well, maybe she could give it a try.

☘ ☘ ☘

The next day, Chanyeon takes Kyungsoo out into town partly to get new clothes and partly because Kyungsoo is curious. He won’t say exactly how long, but he says it’s been “a good while” since he’s been ashore for any real length of time, and he wants to see how much has changed, if anything.

The morning is a bit awkward, neither one saying much in the car (though Kyungsoo found the entire ride highly enjoyable, rolling the windows down despite Chanyeon’s protests), and Kyungsoo concentrating on getting the hang of the crutches. By the time lunch rolls around and they’re sitting in a deli, the crushing awkward has gotten too much for Chanyeon to bear.

“Okay, so,” Chanyeon says, taking out her phone. “Here’s what we are gonna do. I went online and found a ton of information on selkies and I wanna see how much is true. If I like your answer, I’ll give you a fry.” She points to her plate, which Kyungsoo had been eyeing since he finished his a few minutes ago.

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Well this should be interesting. Go ahead.”

She scrolls down. “Good singers?” 

“Hmm, mostly true. I am.”

“Alright.” On a whim she tosses the fry, and he catches it deftly in his teeth, laughing. “Nice! Uh, can’t leave without your skin?”

“False, though I would not want to leave it behind.” She tosses another fry and he catches that one, too.

“Come ashore to seduce beautiful women?” 

“Maybe.” Chanyeon looks up at the tone of his voice and has to quickly look away, already feeling a blush forming from the hooded gaze he was sending her way. She quickly tosses a fry and scrolls down.

“Mate with regular seals?” Kyungsoo sputters mid-bite, losing half the fry to the table. “What?!” Chanyeon laughs at the look on his face and he throws his napkin at her before laughing himself. They’re too loud in the small deli but Chanyeon doesn’t care.

☘ ☘ ☘

It becomes a pattern for them, a game, for each of them to ask questions about each other followed by a reward. Usually it’s snacks or candies, and Kyungsoo tries to get Chanyeon to catch hers but she never can. It’s a fun way to pass the time at home between tasks, moreso when Kyungsoo finishes stitching and now just has to wait.

Chanyeon still hasn’t made a move, content right now to just enjoy the non-canine company at home for once. Sehun has made his displeasure known but is too busy freaking out over the responsibilities being in a relationship at Christmastime entails.

About a week or so into Kyungsoo’s stay as a human they’re both lounging on the couch, asking questions and tossing chocolate candies back and forth. So far, Chanyeon has learned a lot more about sea life than she’d imagined. Unprovable, but fascinating nonetheless. 

Kyungsoo tosses a candy at her. It goes wide, and in her lunge for it, Chanyeon accidentally knocks Kyungsoo’s leg off the couch. He gasps in pain, and she immediately springs forward, propping his leg up on her lap so she can undo the bandages and check for torn stitches. 

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” she exclaims, over and over, even when she confirms that the stitches are all fine. She leaves and returns with fresh dressing, carefully, gently rewrapping his leg. She barely notices that Kyungsoo’s gone quiet.

“There, perfect, I’m really sorr--” She looks up only to find Kyungsoo’s face is very close to her own, and the words die in her throat.

“You are very cute when you work,” he says, fingers coming up to stroke at her cheek. “You bite your lip and it makes me a bit crazy.” His thumb traces along her lip as he talks, sending little shocks like static electricity under her skin. “May I?” he asks, eyes flicking up from her lips to lock with hers, dewy and dark and nearly hypnotizing.

“Uh,” Chanyeon says, before he leans in and kisses her. 

He’s intense, insistent from the start and Chanyeon can barely keep up, trying to match but distracted by how warm his hands feel cradling her jaw and on her hip. His lips are as soft as she’d imagined, and she tries to just lose herself in the feeling of them moving against hers, plush but firm and so very talented. Her arms wrap around his neck and he skillfully maneuvers himself over her so as not to bang his leg. When he settles his weight on her, solid and a little heavy, she sighs, and Kyungsoo takes the chance to lick into her mouth. 

He tastes like chocolate and like sea breeze and Chanyeon can’t get enough. She clings tighter and lets him take her heart from her lips, though if she’d been paying attention, she’d have noticed him giving more than taking. 

They spend the rest of the afternoon on the couch, kissing until their lips are bruised and they’ve gone lightheaded. After that, candy rewards become kisses and Sehun starts sleeping more at his boyfriend’s place.

☘ ☘ ☘

“I could kiss you forever,” he says, murmured in the dark, lips ghosting over her earlobe, private, confessional, too true to be seductive.

Chanyeon whimpers, and tries not to think about healing skin and the waves outside her front door.

☘ ☘ ☘

Kyungsoo has too much fun decorating the small tree she and Sehun put up each year, and when they inevitably end up kissing under the branches, Chanyeon watches the colored lights reflected in his eyes and sees promises she’s not sure either of them can keep.

She kisses him instead, eyes closed and heart too open.

☘ ☘ ☘

Two days before Christmas, Chanyeon is lying on her bed, reading and highlighting journals and wondering if she should get Kyungsoo a gift, when he appears at her door, beaming.

“Chanyeon, come here, look!” He frantically gestures for her to follow to the living room, so she does, smiling.

Kyungsoo has his sealskin spread out on the coffee table in its full beauty. He gestures at the edge of it and the smile freezes on Chanyeon’s face. 

“Look, the skin has almost completely healed! And my leg has long since closed up. I am certain I can wear it again without a problem.” He turns to her, heart shaped smile and all. “I cannot wait to swim again.”

Chanyeon musters up as much of a smile as she can, even as she feels the bottom of her gut fall out. “That’s...that’s really great!” This is it, her paying the bill again. “I guess I’ll see you...when I see you, then.”

“What?” Kyungsoo’s smile falls, going serious, and Chanyeon has to look away, she can’t watch his face while he tells her goodbye, he’s too much. She focuses on a spot on the couch instead.

“I mean, well, you’re healed, I guess that means you’re good now, you don’t have any other reason to stick around.” The silence after is heavy.

“I thought....” His voice is dull, and quiet. “No, I guess I do not.” She hears him gather up the skin, and her fingernails dig into her palm. 

“Thank you for everything” he says.

“No problem,” Chanyeon replies to the couch, but he’s already shut the door.

☘ ☘ ☘

“Where’s Kyungsoo?” Sehun asks when he gets home to Chanyeon on the couch, face buried in her hands. She shakes her head, and Sehun rushes over.

“So he just left?” Chanyeon sobs a little and flings herself at his shoulder, and he manages to get the whole story out between hiccups.

“You didn’t ask him to stay?” Chanyeon shakes her head, sniffling. 

“No, I mean how could I? He’s a selkie, of course he’d want to leave, he belongs in the ocean.” Sehun whacks her with a throw pillow, and she yelps. “What the hell, Sehun?”

“You idiot!” Sehun looks livid, and Chanyeon shrinks back. “That’s not your decision to make! You can’t decide what he wants for him!”

“Well it’s not like I _wanted_ him to go!” Chanyeon yells. Sehun throws up his hands.

“Well he doesn’t know that, Chanyeon, _because you never told him_!” He pauses. “Did you?”

Chanyeon feels like a rock has dropped into her stomach. “Oh my god. I’m an idiot.”

Sehun grins a little. “Yes, you are, I’ve told you this for years now.”

Chanyeon jumps up, whipping out her phone and beginning to type frantically. “What are you doing?”

“Checking something--yes!” She flings her phone at the couch, narrowly missing Sehun’s face. She ignores his shouts and runs upstairs, rummaging through the medicine cabinet in their bathroom. 

She runs full tilt down the boardwalk, ignoring the frozen sea breeze whipping at her hair and at the drying tear tracks on her face. She plunges into the surf, ignoring how her feet immediately go numb, and crouches down until she’s practically sitting in the water. She takes out a single eyedropper.

“Cry, cry, goddamit,” she spits, “you just need seven tears, seven, or he’s not coming back.” It’s this last thought that starts the tears flowing again, and she quickly tries to catch them with the dropper. It’s ridiculous, and difficult, and she keeps missing and poking herself in the eye. She’s only gotten two so far. _Come on, dammit._

“What the hell are you doing?” Chanyeon gasps, choking on her own tears and losing the dropper into the surf. Kyungsoo stands waist deep in the tide, sealskin draped across his shoulders like a glossy cape, naked again but seemingly unbothered by the temperature. His hair is wet, sticking to his face in wild strands and his eyes as intense as ever. He’s beautiful.

“Kyungsoo--I--” Chanyeon staggers to her feet but trips in the surf, teeth chattering. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--I didn’t want you to go, I _don’t_ want you to go--”

He surges forward, swooping down to cut her off with his lips crashing against hers. She sobs into the kiss and clings to his sealskin, letting him hold her up in the water and she knows they must look ridiculous but she doesn’t care. It’s cold, her lips are numb, and they're both very wet but it doesn’t matter at all.

☘ ☘ ☘

“So did the tears actually work?”

“No, that is a myth. I just thought you were going to drown yourself. That, I could not allow.”


End file.
